Over the past couple of weeks, I have had occasion to travel down to Inverness a number of times and it brought a smile to my face when I saw that the donkeys at the Donkey Sanctuary were out in the fields enjoying the warmer weather. Seeing donkeys always makes me think of the significant roles that these beautiful animals play in various stories in the bible. There’s the donkey that carried the heavily pregnant Mary all the way to Bethlehem for example. But did you know about the donkey who spoke? Balaam’s ass. You can read all about her in Numbers 22 – 24. She saw exactly what was going on – more than her boss did, in fact, and eventually spoke to draw his attention to the presence of an angel. 

Another donkey, one which we hear about as we step into Holy Week carried Jesus publicly into Jerusalem. It is well known that nearly all donkeys bear the mark of a cross on their backs and like them we carry the mark of the cross too, given to us at our baptism. Donkeys teach us a lot about discipleship. They remind us that we always carry Jesus invisibly, like Mary’s donkey, wherever we go. Every day Christ is carried into our world by us. As St Theresa said,

‘Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the feet on which he is to go about doing good, ours the eyes through which he is to look with compassion on the world, ours the hands with which he is to bless us now’.

St Theresa

So, on the days when we feel we’re carrying the world on our shoulders, we need to remember that we are also bearing Christ to meet the world’s pain and give people life.

There are times when, like Balaam’s ass, we shall see things that others can’t or won’t see. Then we have to do something about it. Balaam’s ass tried first of all to draw the boss’ attention to the demands of God, the angel standing in the way, and she got pretty rough treatment for her trouble. But then God gave her words to say, and Balaam began to take God seriously.

Being a Christian, being outspoken for God, isn’t always going to be easy or pleasant. Balaam was trying to maintain his reputation and wasn’t keen on anything standing in his way. We shall find ourselves challenging important people and vested interests – that can be very hard, like crucifixion.

The Palm Sunday donkey reminds us that when we go with Christ, there are no promises about easy rides. We know, however, that at the end of the suffering, after the death, there was resurrection. We know that Christ has promised to keep us company, but as we carry him with us in the world, he won’t avoid confrontation, or allow us to. ‘In the world’, he said, ‘you will have tribulation’. We know that, from personal experience, and from sharing in the pain of the world as people starve, exploit and kill each other. We shall have to hang on with some of the donkey’s stubbornness to the belief that Christ really has overcome the evil in the world, and that we shall share that victory.

Ride on, ride on in majesty!

Blessings
Simon

The threat and the reality of exile resurface time and again in the Hebrew Bible. Historically, Israel and Judah experienced a number of major exiles.  The northern kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians around 720 BCE. These exiled people were deported and scattered within the Assyrian Empire, although we know little of their fate. In 597 BCE, the elite of the southern kingdom of Judah, including the prophet Ezekiel and those who had been in power, were exiled by the Babylonians as they asserted power over their weaker neighbour.

Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, was besieged in 589 BCE by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II. The city fell after an eighteen-month siege and Nebuchadnezzar pillaged and destroyed the city and burned the First Temple. After the fall of Jerusalem, the Judeans were exiled to Babylon. The fallen kingdom was then annexed as a Babylonian province.  Some Judeans fled to Egypt, although some also managed to remain behind in Judah their homeland.

Clearly, the ‘People of God’ were no strangers to foreign aggression, occupation and exile. Much of the Book of Isaiah, as well as those of other prophets, give us insight into how the people reacted to and subsequently coped with these things.

The most important lesson that people coming into ministry have to learn (often the hard way) is that they often can’t do anything about the pain, the grief and the sorrow of those committed to their charge. It’s a hard lesson. When people are suffering, you want nothing more than to take their pain away and not being able to do so makes you feel useless, inadequate and impotent. It takes time to learn that what you need to do is to walk alongside them, give them the time and space to talk, as they work through what’s happening to them and adjust to their changed circumstances. 

Prayer, lament and more prayer are the tools that the people of Judah and Israel used as they adjusted to their new situation. These are the tools that the clergy and others in ministry use as they walk alongside others and offer a listening ear.

It’s for this reason that the last two Lent Study Groups (2020 and 2021) have focussed on Prayer and Lament respectively. These are the tools that we all need as we struggle to make sense of what is happening in Ukraine, when we feel powerless and impotent in the face of the Russian invasion and other situations. 

For those who weren’t able to take part in these groups, and those who did, but would like a refresher, the resources are all still available on our web site (https://episcopaldornochtain.org/study-group-resources/). If you’re unable to access them from there, or would like help, please get in touch with a member of the clergy. Meantime, if we can all take time to pray for the Ukrainian people both at home and abroad, it might “by the power of the one at work within us, accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” (Eph 3:20).

ALMIGHTY God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed: Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies; abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices; that we, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore from all perils, kindle, we pray thee, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with thy pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth; that in tranquillity thy kingdom may go forward till the earth be filled with the knowledge of thy love; through the merits of thy only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Blessings
James

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has just ended with a flourish, as a large group of Christians worshipped together on Zoom, in a service inspired by the Feast of the Epiphany and prepared by the Churches of the Middle East. For me, there is an interesting symbolism in this celebration of unity being centred on the Magi from the East, in that some strangers from afar who weren’t connected with the Jewish Tradition undertook long journeys to honour an extraordinary happening, God had become incarnate as a tiny baby. This was God being revealed to the wider gentile world – to all.

In thinking about unity, we shouldn’t however confuse unity with uniformity. Uniformity is all thinking the same and agreeing with each other. Unity is accepting and respecting difference in the pursuit of shared values and goals. In many areas, there’s a tendency for church congregations to be rather homogenous, though certainly in the Episcopal Church in the Highlands because there’s less scope for choosing a church to suit your preferences. Whilst homogeneity isn’t all bad, there are dangers in it: that we come to see what we like, what we choose and the way that we do things as ‘normal’, universally applicable and unchangeable for all time – ‘the proper way of doing things’. Sadly that results in folk becoming defensive and upset by anything or anybody that rocks the boat, challenges the ‘proper way’ or pushes us out of our comfort zone.

Our celebration on Tuesday evening brought together many people of different traditions and practices, to honour an extraordinary happening – the coming of God into our world as one of us – and what that has meant for people all over the world in the 2000 years since. It was a service that brought some of the riches of the Coptic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the French Ecumenical Taizé community and invited us to celebrate using elements that were unfamiliar to most of those present – but you know what, we all enjoyed the experience.

We met as people from across the Churches and Denominations in Sutherland and Easter Ross and one or two from further afield. We met as Christians united in a common faith. We met as part of

“a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb”.

Revelation 7:9

We met “united in the same mind and the same purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10).

We met because before Jesus died, he prayed to his Father:

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

John 17:20-23

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity may have ended on Tuesday, but we need to continue in our effort to work more closely together.  In every encounter that I have with Christians in another fellowship, denomination or congregation, I realise what riches each have to share with their fellow travellers in Christ. Now where did I put the link to that 2 hour and 47 minute video of a Greek Orthodox celebration of the Epiphany?

Blessings
James

The start of a New Year and whilst that’s often a time for celebration, there’s also a tinge of sadness as we say goodbye to 2021, with all its highs and lows and all the things that have happened in each of our lives, in the lives of those around us and in the life of our Church and our nation.

Today in St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, the funeral is being held of Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu, who died last Sunday. For those gathered and for all the people of South Africa, there’ll be sadness at the death of the man who for many years was a very passionate and effective leader in the peaceful struggle to end apartheid, but there’ll also be a joyful celebration of his life and what he did for his nation, his family and for the Anglican Church.

Desmond Tutu will always be remembered as the clergyman who won the Nobel Peace Prize, who helped bring down apartheid and who served as a beacon of light in a divided nation, when everything seemed rather bleak. Yet for some reason he always seemed to be joyful and his cackling laugh was infectious. He was also an insightful observer of the human condition and almost always started his sermons with an amusing story, of which he seemed to have an endless supply.

When speaking to audiences around the world, the man who they called ‘Tata’ (father) who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and spoke out against corruption in the post-apartheid government just as he had against the apartheid one, was frequently asked the same questions:

“Why are you so joyful?” “How do you keep your faith in people when you see so much injustice, oppression and cruelty?” “What makes you so certain that the world is going to get better?”.

In the preface of his book “Made for Goodness”, he asks:

“What these questioners want to know is, What do I see that they’re missing? How do I see the world and my role in it? How do I see God? What is the faith that drives me? What are the spiritual practices that uphold me?  What do I see in the heart of humanity and the sweep of history that confirms my conviction that goodness will triumph?”

“Made for Goodness” Desmond and Mpho Tutu

Questions that might be useful for each one of us to reflect on as we start 2022. Desmond Tutu’s answer is to be found in the stories of the goodness of ordinary people that he and his daughter Mpho have encountered in their lives and ministries and which they share in the book.

In the last couple of years, most of us have faced dark days as the Covid pandemic has waxed and waned repeatedly. But what’s really struck me is the stories of the goodness of ordinary people that I’ve heard from friends, neighbours, relatives and in the news. People who’ve given their time as volunteers in food banks and vaccination centres; people who’ve made sure that their elderly or vulnerable neighbours are kept supplied with the essentials that they need; all those doctors, nurses, pharmacists, workers in care homes and those visiting people at home, who’ve gone much further than just an extra mile and also those who’ve given generously whenever there was need.

Along the way new friendships have been formed, for example between people who’ve lived near each other for years but never really done more than say good morning. Yes there’ve been acts of selfishness and some people who’ve sought to exploit others, but to derive our view of the human condition from these would be to miss what Desmond Tutu calls the inherent goodness of people. He writes:

“As we allow ourselves to accept God’s acceptance, we begin to accept our own goodness and beauty as God does.  With each glimpse of our own beauty, we can begin to see the goodness and beauty in others”

“Made for Goodness” Desmond and Mpho Tutu

A happy New Year and may you face 2022 with acceptance, joy and laughter and perhaps see more of the inherent goodness in everyone, as both Jesus who called His Father Abba and Archbishop Tutu who South Africans often called ‘Tata’ did.

Blessings
James

Hallowe’en marks the start of the Season of Remembrance. The word Hallowe’en is a contraction of ‘the eve of all Hallows’, and All Hallows is the Feast of All Saints, or All Saints Day’. This year we are celebrating All Saints Sunday on Hallowe’en, a day when we think particularly of those who even in this life, kindled a light for us in ours. Although it might be more accurate to say that what they actually did was to reflect for us, the light of Christ. 

All Saints Day (November 1^st) is followed on November 2^nd by All Souls Day, the day that we remember all the ‘souls’ of those that we have known and loved who have gone before us into the light of Heaven. Our celebration of All Saints and All Souls’ stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (the ‘Church triumphant’), and the living (the ‘Church militant’).

In Arthur C Clarke’s classic book, “2001: A Space Odyssey” he makes the assertion: “Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.” Currently there are about 7.7 billion people alive and it is estimated that there have been 117 billion people born since 190,000 BCE, so we are among 7% of the people that have ever lived 14 ghosts each. However Arthur C Clarke was making his statement in 1968 when there were about 3.5 billion people living on earth so that would be one living person for each 29.

It’s therefore right and fitting that we should have a season of the year for remembrance when we recognise the connection between the living and the dead. I always feel that this is a time when perhaps the veil between time and eternity is thinner and get a sense of the greater and wider communion of saints to which we belong and who I feel a connection with every time I come into a church building.

Of course we also remember, on the Sunday closest to 11^th November, those who have lost their lives in wars and conflicts around the world. In gatherings at war memorials and in church services we unite across faiths, cultures and backgrounds to remember their service and sacrifice.

It seems appropriate that the Church celebrates these things as the days shorten at the turning of the year . This is of course also the time when the pre-Christian Celtic religions were accustomed to think of and make offerings for the dead.

As Christians, we recognise that the greatest and only offering, to redeem both the living and the dead, has been made by Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

Blessings
James

“For we know the one who said, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Hebrews 10:30-31

The concept of ‘the wrath of God’, is one which we find many times especially in the Old Testament, but also as the quote above suggests, in the New Testament. My reflections on matters relating to climate change and climate injustice during the Season of Creation have led me to think that we need to revisit the concept and reframe it for the 21st century and the ‘scientific’ age.

The the whole of creation works according to what we sometimes refer to as the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Physics, etc. These are how things are and how the world works and we cannot change them. We can of course work within them to achieve particular goals. The trouble is that if we change something, then because these laws continue to operate, something else unexpected might change as a result.

There is a complex interconnectedness between things, which we cannot hope to fully understand, even if we build very sophisticated computer models of what is going on and continue to increase our knowledge across a wide range of disciplines. For example, over the years, the computer models used for weather forecasting have grown ever larger and more complex,as computing power has grown. However the accuracy of the predictions still often isn’t particularly good.

You may recall King Canute (or Cnut), who was king of Denmark, Norway and England in the 10th and 11th centuries. The well known story of King Canute trying to hold back the tide to show how powerful he was is an apocryphal anecdote, recorded in the 12th century by Henry of Huntingdon. In the story, Canute actually demonstrates to his courtiers that he has no control over the incoming tide, he actually explains that secular power is vain compared to the supreme power of God.

The episode is frequently alluded to in contexts where the futility of trying to “hold back the tide” of an inexorable event is pointed out, but often misrepresents Canute as believing he has supernatural powers, when Huntingdon’s story in fact indicates the opposite, illustrating the piety and humility of King Canute.

There is no doubt that humanity has invented and discovered many things and that we all benefit for a myriad of scientific and technological advances, however, we have to recognise that what we actually know is a mere fraction of the way that creation is and we all need to have Canute’s humility in all that we do to avoid being caught out by unexpected consequences.

If we act as though we are masters of the universe then we should not be surprised if the laws of physics or nature produce those unexpected consequences. We might see this as unfortunate or being unlucky and that we just need to be a bit cleverer to fix it.

Alternatively in humility, we could accept that because we fail to fully understand what we are doing, then when we are caught out by physics and nature ‘reacting’ and ‘re-balancing’ things, this might reasonably be described as the wrath of God.

We are not God, we cannot control everything and we are not masters of everything around us – that role belongs to the creator of the universe who set the laws of physics and nature in motion and gave us the wonderful world that we live in and which in some form we will hand on to our children and grandchildren.

Blessings
James